Video Galleries

Running is more than a sport on Hopi reservation

Navajo Times, July 2016: Hopi Bruins’ incredible string of 26 consecutive Arizona high school boy’s cross-country state championship was featured on ESPN. Hopi’s storied program set a national record with the amount of consecutive state titles.Rick Baker, who has coached all of the Bruins’ state championships, said the feature gave the program, school, villages and Hopi Nation exposure.“Throughout the history of the cross-country program, I am very proud of all the runners,” Baker said humbly. “The runners won the state championships. The runners listened to the coaching staff. The runners worked hard. Every year the runners say they don’t want to be the team to break the consecutive state championships.”

The Long Green Line

Coach Joe Newton has used the sport of Cross Country Running to teach simple but important lessons to high school boys for the last 50 years. "Always do your best", "be on time" and "it's nice to be great but far greater to be nice" are mantras, which have turned the Boys Cross Country team at the public York High School in Elmhurst Illinois into the most winning high school team in any sport in America. Along with mastery of their sport, Newton turns boys into men, who carry his teaching and his love for each of them throughout their lives. The Long Green Line documents the York Duke's 2005 Cross Country season as the runners seek their record 25th state title in 50 years. In the sport of Cross Country only the top 5 athletes per team score

points and only seven are included in competition. The York team has 221 athletes participating under the tutelage of Coach Newton. Though 214 boys know they will have no influence on the season's scores, they are moved to participate just to be in the presence of Coach Newton. Such a large team is a blessing and curse. Newton is able to spread his influence further but life lessons can go unheard when they have to trickle to so many ears. In the middle of the season, two of the star athletes are expelled from school after committing over $1 million in arson damage. The York team is forced to rebuild -- to face a true test of what they have learned both physically and mentally. The team is colorfully decorated with characters like the All-American winners the Dettman Twins, Sophomore John Fisher, a high functioning autistic with a heart of gold, out of shape former football players who reside on the lowest rung of the team and Freshman Connor Chadwick who has cerebral palsy but is able to run without leg braces for the first time in his life. The Long Green Line is not only a team but also, a rite of passage. It is a lifeline for these young runners as they move from adolescence to manhood.

E:60 - Catching Kayle

Entering her senior year at Mount Tabor High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Kayla Montgomery had big goals—to win the Cross-Country State Championship. It was a goal that seemed completely impossible just three years earlier, when Kayla was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis--an often debilitating disease that in in Kayla's case causes her to lose all feeling from the waist down during a race.

It also means Kayla lacks the coordination in her legs necessary to stop herself upon crossing the finish line. The result, in race after race, is the running equivalent of a crash landing. Unable slow down gradually, Kayla instead collapses into the awaiting arms of her coach, Patrick Cromwell.

Tom Rinaldi tells the remarkable story of Kayla Montgomery…from the diagnosis that threatened to end her athletic career, to the coach that inspired her to push on, to a unbelievable senior season with a finish that is northing short of miraculous.

Witness Some Incredible Sportsmanship at the 2014 NCAA D1 Cross Country Champsionships

Anne Marie Dunlap collapses near the finish and Baylor teammate Madison Zimmerman and Minnesota's Kate Bucknam help her to the finish line at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. None of the athletes were disqualified as Anne Marie, Kate, and Madison finished 239th, 240th, and 241st, respectively.

Boy Inspires Kids - Kids Inspire Us All

Matt has Spastic Cerebral Palsy, but opted to run in Field Day at Colonial Hills Elementary School despite being given the option to sit it out and despite the incredible challenge of his disability. What transpires is a boy who is filled with determination and a school of children who spontaneously come together and inspire Matt and everyone of us to do and be better.